


someone so well put together cannot hold everything in

by Ace_SpookY



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji needing help, Akaashi just needs a hug, Character Study, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Twitter, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_SpookY/pseuds/Ace_SpookY
Summary: In which Akaashi feels unweighted pressure from something festering in his mind.(Made based on an idea by @jawsdraws on Twitter!)ADHD is a hard thing to deal with, especially if you aren't interested in what you are working on. While it can take form in many different ways, it helps to talk with someone about how you are feeling.This prompt is about how Akaashi struggles with concentrating on his job. While working at home, he feels frustrated. Soon enough, he ends up bursting and has to talk with Bokuto about it.---Words.All Keiji saw were words splayed across manga panels, meaningless actions. He felt his mind slip slightly. His hands gripped his pen, throwing it into the corner with a frustrated groan. Words entering his head, words to describe the frustration, words to describe being stressed and overworked from a new job, new people.Around him was his organized desk, in a room that was anything but that. After all, he had lost the grip of having a nicer living space.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	someone so well put together cannot hold everything in

**Author's Note:**

> TW!
> 
> Mental Health: Slight Hyperfixations, overthinking, lack of concentration, ADHD tendencies

Words. 

All Keiji saw were words splayed across manga panels, meaningless actions. He felt his mind slip slightly. His hands gripped his pen, throwing it into the corner with a frustrated groan. Words entering his head, words to describe the frustration, words to describe being stressed and overworked from a new job, new people. 

Around him was his organized desk, in a room that was anything but that. After all, he had lost the grip of having a nicer living space. 

Koutaro wasn't home often for the daytime. After all, how could he be? He was the representative wing spiker of Japan, why wouldn't he be busy? To be busy with a measly translator for a mangaka? 

Keiji felt his head inflating with threads of words, all streaming through his mind. He adjusted his thick-framed glasses, his fingers lightly brushing against the light material. "God..." 

His head had a thumping feeling, his eyes feeling like they would glaze over simply from staring at the pages in front of him. An action sequence, but it didn't draw him in: rather, it repelled him. 

He sat in his apartment for a moment longer before sitting up, trudging to sit down at the couch, picking up his phone wordlessly. He could afford a break, right? Maybe drink some water, text Koutaro and make sure he's alright. Maybe even text Kozume to catch up or something. He found it hard to even think, his mind having a particular buzz, a static film pressed down over his thoughts. 

Keiji mused quietly to himself: it was a mix of thinking too much or not thinking enough. Trying to apply himself in something that he was absolutely trying to apply himself to didn't come as easy. 

His hands slid over his shirt, adjusting it quietly, his throat dry. 

Yet, he's had this feeling for a long time, he thinks. This balance of focusing on things that seem to interest him. Particularly, his loving boyfriend, Koutaro. His habits, which he loves to pick apart and analyze bit by bit, even if they don't make much sense. It's how he likes to do things, he thinks. 

Looking at people and discovering social cues like that was important to him, after all. 

Otherwise, before he picked up the habit, he was awkward. He didn't know exactly what to say. Didn't know how to handle things or emotions. Didn't know how to focus on things that didn't seem to be interesting. 

There were many things he didn't know, even now as he pulled up old text messages. Koutaro was about to come home today after a week of a training camp, so maybe- 

Maybe he could talk with him? 

But- 

His boyfriend had a lot on his mind as well. Being a representative of Japan was hefty, Keiji knew, and it affected Koutaro more than he would like to admit.

He discovered that one day after brushing silver and gray hair away from his lover’s face and having the larger man break down in front of him, clutching onto his shoulders. 

Another thought pressed into his head, striking him. 

Thinking of the man had made him feel soft, comforted. Stress slowly lifted out of his frame, the static slowly drifting into thinking once more. 

Keiji's eyes softened slightly as he looked at a few different pictures of theirs, getting swept up in scrolling through photo albums upon photo albums. Social media. His fifteen-minute break seemed to turn to a three hour one, which startled him when he heard the door open. 

Koutaro peeked into the house, his smile big and bright. He was dressed in a red jacket and sports shorts, and had a grocery bag in his arms, a take-out bag in the other, his keys precariously gripped on his index finger. 

Keiji sat up quickly and flinched. "B-Bokuto-San! What are you doing home so early?" 

The lights seemed a little dimmer, which made Keiji frown slightly. 

Koutaro tilted his head, blinking slowly as he delicately set both bags down, frowning. "Kaashi, it's six?" He smiled softly. "I got you some Onigiri. Did you get some work done? I bet you did. You're always such a hard worker! Even since high school, I remember you always staring out the window before jotting everything down!" He opened his arms and beamed. "Also! I have not gotten a hug from you in weeks...So uh..." 

Keiji's eyes slightly widened, tilting his head. "H-hah...? It's been that long? But I swear, it was just three." He bit his lip, his eyebrows scrunched together. "Since High School?" He grunted, his mind slowly starting to spiral once again, working. 

Piecing things together. 

Koutaro gently pulled him to his chest, his smile turned to a concerned frown, his larger arms wrapping around Akaashi's slightly shorter frame. "Kaashi, you're worrying me!" He leaned down, his thumb gently pressing and rubbing against the scrunched area of his forehead. 

Keiji shut his eyes, letting him. "Bokuto, I haven't gotten any work done. Whenever I look at it, it's just...Like a fog comes over me. I don't know-how, or why, but..." he let out a loud sigh and rested his head against his shoulder. 

Koutaro blinked owlishly, his hands gently reaching down and lifting Keiji's head, delicately. "Can you tell me exactly how it feels?"

Keiji frowned, his eyes peeking open. 

He knew that expression: that concern. That soft fear. He's been under that soft scrutinizing gaze when he's overworked himself to tears. From High School to even now, in his current job. 

He sighed, realizing that he could never lie about what he was feeling. Beneath the soft feelings, he couldn't lie to him. Not after so long of feeling like he couldn't concentrate without something else drawing to him, not with the loss of interest and intense interests that were so flippant that it was scary. 

He took deep breaths, his hand resting over Koutaro's slightly smaller ones. "Bokuto, how do you do it? Stay devoted to one thing for such a long time? I told everyone I was going into literature, but I'm just a translator. I grew up playing Volleyball, and couldn't branch into being a pro. Why am I not good enough? Even when I land a good job, I can't focus or concentrate without this fog, this goddamned fuzz. 

"When I try to think, it's so hard." 

Strong hands were gentler now. A small stiffening, while alarm flickered in Koutaro's eyes. 

He said nothing, just nodded. 

Keiji continued, swallowing down the lump crossing into his throat, his words feeling hard to get out. He kept on, however. 

"It's normal to feel that way, I know. I know that I usually don't even reach out to our old friends like Konoha, not often. I can't determine whether it's because I'm busy or don't care, but every time I type out a message, I can't send it. I feel sick before writing it and then don't end up sending it at all! God, Bokuto, it hurts so much, I just hate-" his breath, increasing in pace, as fast as he continued, "Hate feeling this way, but I know it's normal. Maybe I'm just weak, but God..." he murmured. 

Koutaro pulled him snug into his chest, his arms wrapped tight around Keiji. 

Keiji's breathe stuttered slightly as he stared up at the man who had concern written all over his face. 

Koutaro looked down at him, their eyes meeting one another's. With a few words, Keiji's heart jumped. 

"Keiji, that's not normal. That's something that you talk to someone about." 

Keiji thrashed around in grounding arms, arms that keep reminding him of home, of interests that pass, of things that now didn't seem to make sense. "What do you mean it's not normal?" He muttered, trying to wedge himself away, anything away from the topic. 

Koutaro's eyes softened, letting him go gently. He instead linked their pinkies together, kissing the knuckle gently. "Can we talk about this after you eat? You said it was three, so you must not have eaten yet. Did you hydrate at all today?" He let go, walking to the bags he brought home. 

Keiji's eyes averted, his hands holding his own arms. He couldn't help but notice a slight tremor. 

"I did. A little bit, but I did." 

Koutaro nodded. "Okidoks. I brought home some food from the Miya restaurant. You said you liked his rice balls, so I got you some on the way back. I figured it would be nice as a coming back home thing." 

Keiji nodded along with him, swallowing back emotions. "Yeah." 

\---

It happened over dinner, really. The night before was a blur. 

He remembers breaking down after eating, being swaddled in blankets. Being told that it wasn't exactly normal, but those feelings could be explained. 

He remembers being held in grounding arms(even now while he's laid awake on their shared bed, he feels soft arms wrapped around him from behind) and told that they could work through this together, that he could take a sick leave so they could work through it. 

Keiji turned in arms that promised change, brushing sweeps of silver and gray strands of hair away from his lover’s jawline. 

He sighed gently and let out a small noise of content, leaning into him a bit more. His thoughts had slowed, muddled by sleep and stress from being overworked. 

Koutaro, the night before, had sat him down and explained to him that how Keiji felt those times was exactly how he felt back in high school. They were symptoms of his autism, which also contributed to a small form of his ADHD. It was why he stimmed after doing a good receive or spike, always saying his signature catchphrase, his smile big and bright. 

When Koutaro got bad grades, he was upset and had his emotions run rampant, his hyper fixation with volleyball not necessarily blending well with what was viewed or deemed as important. He too, found it hard to concentrate. Had a fog, a static, a moment of his brain seemingly glitching. 

Koutaro, too, had to reach out to his parents about it, had to poke and prod at the subject before opening up. It was why Koutaro was so worried: after all, everyone's mental health was different, and he couldn't explain every symptom to Akaashi. 

Couldn't brush away his feelings or how he felt, or tell him it was normal when it wasn't. 

Keiji remembered their hands brushing together, his feelings building up as he finally spilled, his emotions bubbling up. To deal with something in his head? When all his thoughts had to be reasoned away? It seemed impossible. 

Even still, Koutaro brushed away at his tears and explained even further how it could be dealt with or treated, though everyone was different. He offered to ask Shirabu, one of Ushijima's friends who had gone to medical school and majored in psychology. 

That same night, they set an appointment to talk with him about it. 

Keiji brushed his hand through his hair, nervous. Yet Koutaro had suggested it, so he supposed he would have to trust it. 

Maybe a few sessions would help, but not too many. Keiji was always a person who felt like he could do everything by himself(he couldn't, but 'appearances were everything, as he told himself), and that kind of thing was so private. He felt the need to clam up at the potential of something being...

Well, not wrong, he thought. But the potential that someone could see past him and realize he wasn't perfect as he was always told? That he couldn't bear the world on his shoulders, that he wasn't stable, those possibilities? 

At first, it was so scary. 

Koutaro had brushed his hands over his, his hands securing the warm and fluffy blankets around Keiji as he reassured him over and over. How maybe, during this week he took off, he would be able to bake bread with him, or maybe play mini-golf, have dinner with one another. How, if Keiji wanted, they could watch one of his pre-recorded matches from the other week. Anything that Keiji wanted to do, he would offer to do. 

Maybe even help with his translator work, Koutaro joked. 

Keiji felt safer as he nuzzled into warmer blankets, grounding arms, and words that described thankfulness, stressfulness, and the relieving feeling of being held.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me at @Spoooookyy_ on Twitter!


End file.
